Angelo: I've learned a lot over the last 2 years

INDIANAPOLIS -- Like everyone else in charge of drafting players for NFL teams, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo has had his share of early-round disappointments over the years.

Defensive linemen Tank Johnson and Michael Haynes leap to mind, and Cedric Benson still has a lot of questions to answer.

But Angelo says he's learned a few things from his mistakes, and that knowledge will alter the way the Bears approach this year's selection meeting, which is two months away.

"I've been doing this a long time, but you're learning all the time," said Angelo, whose career as an NFL scout began in 1980 with the Dallas Cowboys. "About two years ago another little light went off, and we're looking at things a little differently. We're looking at things differently from an intangible standpoint.

"That's the light that went off in my mind, and I feel we're going to be a lot better because of this from top to bottom."

As always, NFL personnel people must weigh talent vs. character, since it's rare that players are beyond reproach in both areas. No matter how much talent a player has, if he can't make mature decisions on and off the field, he can be a bad pick. And someone who's a model citizen but a stiff on the field doesn't help win games.

Since late last week and through Tuesday, Angelo and his staff will get all the measurables they need from drills and tests at the scouting combine. But projecting how a young adult will handle NFL prosperity is a much more subjective exercise.

"As I've said many times before, the two things (a player) doesn't have in college that he will have in abundance up here are time and money," Angelo said. "How he uses that and allocates that will determine what kind of career he has. That usually holds true for all players, so that's what we have to do and we have to do a good job of (predicting) that."

In simplest terms, what Angelo and everyone else is trying to determine is character in their 1-on-1 interviews with potential draft picks and by talking to their coaches, family and friends. Or, more accurately, football character. Both terms are defined differently by different evaluators.

"Character's a nebulous term," Angelo said. "We could all sit here and describe character and probably come up with varying definitions, but I'm looking at it in a whole different light now."

Character may be harder to define now than it ever has been. Players are coached, and in some cases overcoached, by agents who know exactly what the NFL wants to hear before they commit millions of dollars in bonus money to potential employees. And some players are more adept than others at portraying themselves as boy scouts when they're actually criminals.

"Character is not an easy thing to project in our world," Angelo said. "But there are traits. Winners have traits; losers have traits."

Angelo has long held that it makes more sense to draft players with a high minimum level of performance than gambling on someone with a lofty upside who has a huge bust potential. Balancing talent and character factor heavily into the decision.

"We're looking for players with high floors -- that's our goal," Angelo said. "We'll compromise some things, but we won't prostitute. We have more specific things that we now need to know and look for. We've made it a lot easier now to depict character as it applies to talent, and I feel very, very good about our philosophy going forward."

• The Bears rewarded nine-year veteran tight end Desmond Clark on Sunday with a two-year contract extension that runs through 2010 and is worth $5 million, including a $2 million signing bonus.

Clark was third on the team with 44 catches and 545 yards last season despite the presence of first-round draft pick Greg Olsen (39 catches, 391 yards). Clark, who will be 31 in April, has 181 receptions for 2,115 yards and 15 touchdowns since joining the Bears in 2003 with a six-year, $9 million contract that had one year remaining.

Over the last two seasons Clark's 13.2-yard average per catch (89 for 1,171 yards) is the highest among all NFL tight ends.